Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Science
Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1: Containing Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory.
Psychology, Experimental
Now such a space theory is plainly not to be confused with the theory
that makes the reversibility of the spatial series its primary
property. It is evident that we can have a series of sensations which
may be reversed and yet not give the notion of space. But we should
always have space-perception if one half of the circular process above
described comes from an outer activity, and the other half from an
inner activity. This way of describing the reversibility of the
spatial series makes it less possible to urge against it the
objections that Stumpf[20] has formulated against Bain's genetic
space-theory. Stumpf's famous criticism applies not only to Bain, but
also to the other English empiricists and to Wundt. Bain says: "When
with the hand we grasp something moving and move with it, we have a
sensation of one unchanged contact and pressure, and the sensation is
imbedded in a movement. This is one experience. When we move the hand
over a fixed surface, we have with the feelings of movement a
succession of feelings of touch; if the surface is a variable one,
the sensations are constantly changing, so that we can be under no
mistake as to our passing through a series of tactual impressions.
This is another experience, and differs from the first not in the
sense of power, but in the tactile accompaniment. The difference,
however, is of vital importance. In the one case, we have an object
moving and measuring time and continuous, in the other case we have
coëxistence in space. The coëxistence is still further made apparent
by our reversing the movement, and thereby meeting the tactile series
in the inverse order. Moreover, the serial order is unchanged by the
rapidity of our movements."[21]
[20] Stumpf, K., 'Ueber d. psycholog. Ursprung d.
Raumvorstellung,' Leipzig, 1873, S. 54.
[21] Bain, A., 'The Senses and the Intellect,' 3d ed., New
York, 1886, p. 183.
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